The Mysterious Island, Jules Verne [most popular ebook readers txt] 📗

Spilett was right. Evidently, if the castaway had ever been civilized, isolation had made him a savage, a real creature of the woods. He gave utterance to hoarse sounds, from between teeth which were as sharp as those of animals living on raw flesh. Memory had doubtless long ago left him, and he had long since forgotten the use of arms and tools, and even how to make a fire. One could see that he was active and supple, but that his physical qualities had developed to the exclusion of his moral perception.

Spilett spoke to him, but he neither understood nor listened, and, looking him in the eye, the reporter could see that all intelligence had forsaken him. Nevertheless, the prisoner did not struggle or strive to break his bonds. Was he cowed by the presence of these men, whom he had once resembled? Was there in some corner of his brain a flitting remembrance which drew him towards humanity? Free, would he have fled or would he have remained? They did not know, and they did not put him to the proof. After having looked attentively at the miserable creature, Spilett said:—

“What he is, what he has been, and what he will be; it is still our duty to take him to Lincoln Island.”

“Oh yes, yes,” exclaimed Herbert, “and perhaps we can, with care, restore to him some degree of intelligence.”

“The soul never dies,” answered the reporter, “and it would be a great thing to bring back this creature of God’s making from his brutishness.”

Pencroff shook his head doubtfully.

“It is necessary to try at all events,” said the reporter, “humanity requires it of us.”

“It was, indeed, their duty as civilized and Christian beings, and they well knew that Smith would approve of their course.

“Shall we leave him bound?” inquired the sailor.

“Perhaps if we unfasten his feet he will walk,” said Herbert.

“Well, let us try,” replied the sailor.

And the cords binding the creature’s legs were loosened, although his arms were kept firmly bound. He rose without manifesting any desire to escape. His tearless eyes darted sharp glances upon the three men who marched beside him, and nothing denoted that he remembered being or having been like them. A wheezing sound escaped from his lips, and his aspect was wild, but he made no resistance.

By the advice of the reporter, the poor wretch was taken to the house, where, perhaps, the sight of the objects in it might make some impression upon him. Perhaps a single gleam would awaken his sleeping consciousness, illuminate his darkened mind.

The house was near by, and in a few minutes they were there; but the prisoner recognized nothing—he seemed to have lost consciousness of everything. Could it be that this brutish state was due to his long imprisonment on the island? That, having come here a reasoning being, his isolation had reduced him to this state?

The reporter thought that perhaps the sight of fire might affect him, and in a moment one of those lovely flames which attract even animals lit up the fireplace. The sight of this flame seemed at first to attract the attention of the unfortunate man, but very soon he ceased regarding it. Evidently, for the present at least, there was nothing to do but take him aboard the Good Luck, which was accordingly done. He was left in charge of Pencroff, while the two others returned to the island and brought over the arms and implements, a lot of seeds, some game, and two pairs of pigs which they had caught. Everything was put on board, and the sloop rode ready to hoist anchor as soon as the next morning’s tide would permit.

The prisoner had been placed in the forward hold, where he lay calm, quiet, insensible, and mute. Pencroff offering him some cooked meat to eat, he pushed it away; but, on being shown one of the ducks which Herbert had killed, he pounced on it with bestial avidity and devoured it.

“You think he’ll be himself again?” asked the sailor, shaking his head.

“Perhaps,” replied the reporter. “It is not impossible that our attentions will react on him, since it is the isolation that has done this; and he will be alone no longer.”

“The poor fellow has doubtless been this way for a long time.”

“Perhaps so.”

“How old do you think he is?” asked the lad.

“That is hard to say,” replied the reporter, “as his matted beard obscures his face; but he is no longer young, and I should say he was at least fifty years old.”

“Have you noticed how his eyes are set deep in his head?”

“Yes, but I think that they are more human than one would suspect from his general appearance.”

“Well, we will see,” said Pencroff; “and I am curious to have Mr. Smith’s opinion of our savage. We went to find a human being, and we are bringing back a monster. Any how, one takes what he can get.”

The night passed, and whether the prisoner slept or not he did not move, although he had been unbound. He was like one of those beasts that in the first moments of their capture submit, and to whom the rage returns later.

At daybreak the next day, the 17th, the change in the weather was as Pencroff had predicted. The wind hauled round to the northwest and favored the return of the Good Luck; but at the same time it had freshened, so as to make the sailing more difficult. At 5 o’clock the anchor was raised, Pencroff took a reef in the mainsail and headed directly towards home.

The first day passed without incident. The prisoner rested quietly in the forward cabin, and, as he had once been a sailor, the motion of the sloop produced upon him a sort of salutary reaction. Did it recall to him some remembrance of his former occupation? At least he rested tranquil, more astonished than frightened.

On the 16th the wind freshened considerably, coming round more to the north, and therefore in a direction less favorable to the course of the Good Luck, which bounded over the waves. Pencroff was soon obliged to hold her nearer to the wind, and without saying so, he began to be anxious at the lookout ahead. Certainly, unless the—wind moderated, it would take much longer to go back than it had taken to come.

On the 17th they had been forty-eight hours out, and yet nothing indicated they were in the neighborhood of Lincoln Island. It was, moreover, impossible to reckon their course, or even to estimate the distance traversed, as the direction and the speed had been too irregular. Twenty-four hours later there was still no land in view. The wind was dead ahead, and an ugly sea running. On the 18th a huge wave struck the sloop, and had not the crew been lashed to the deck, they would have been swept overboard.

On this occasion Pencroff and his companions, busy in clearing things away, received an unhoped-for assistance from the prisoner, who sprang from the hatchway as if his sailor instinct had returned to him, and breaking the rail by a, vigorous blow—with a spar, enabled the water on the deck to flow off more freely. Then, the boat cleared, without having said a word, he returned to his cabin.

Nevertheless, the situation was bad, and the sailor had cause to believe himself lost upon this vast sea, without the possibility of regaining his course. The night of the 18th was dark and cold. But about 11 o’clock the wind lulled, the sea fell, and the sloop, less tossed about, moved more rapidly. None of the crew thought of sleep. They kept an eager lookout, as either Lincoln Island must be near at hand and they would discover it at daybreak, or the sloop had been drifted from her course by the currents, and it would be next to impossible to rectify the direction.

Pencroff, anxious to the last degree, did not, however, despair; but, seated at the helm, he tried to see through the thick darkness around him. Towards 2 o’clock he suddenly started up, crying:—“A light! a light!” It was indeed a bright light appearing twenty miles to—the northeast. Lincoln Island was there, and this light, evidently lit by Smith, indicated the direction to be followed.

Pencroff, who had been heading much too far towards the north, changed his course, and steered directly towards the light, which gleamed above the horizon like a star of the first magnitude.

THE RETURN-DISCUSSION—SMITH AND THE UNKNOWN—BALLOON HARBOR-THE DEVOTION OF THE ENGINEER-A TOUCHING EXPERIENCE-TEARS.

At 7 o’clock the next morning the boat touched the shore at the mouth of the Mercy. Smith and Neb, who had become very anxious at the stormy weather and the prolonged absence of their companions, had climbed, at daylight, to Prospect Plateau, and had at length perceived the sloop in the distance.

“Thank Heaven! There they are,” exclaimed Smith; while Neb, dancing with pleasure, turned towards his master, and, striking his hands together, cried, “Oh, my master!”-a more touching expression than, the first polished phrase.

The engineer’s first thought, on counting the number of persons on the deck of the Good Luck, was that Pencroff had found no one on Tabor Island, or that the unfortunate man had refused to exchange one prison for another.

The engineer and Neb were on the beach at the moment the sloop arrived, and before the party had leaped ashore, Smith said:—

“We have been very anxious about you, my friends. Did anything happen to you?” “No, indeed; everything went finely,” replied Spilett. “We will tell you all about it.”

“Nevertheless, you have failed in your search, since you are all alone.”, “But, sir, there are four of us,” said the sailor.

“Have you found this person?”. “Yes.”

“And brought him back?” “Yes.” “Living?” “Where is he, and what is he, then?” “He is, or rather, he was a human being; and that is all, Cyrus, that we can say.”

The engineer was thereupon, informed of everything that had happened; of the search, of the long-abandoned house, of the capture of the scarcely human inhabitant.

“And,” added Pencroff,” I don’t know whether we have done right in bringing him here.”

“Most certainly you have done right,” replied the engineer.

“But the poor fellow has no sense at all.” “Not now, perhaps; in a few months, he will be as much a man as any of us. “Who knows what might happen to the last one of us, after living for a long time alone on this island? It is terrible to be all alone, my friends, and it is probable that solitude quickly overthrows reason, since you have found this poor being in such a condition.”

“But, Mr. Smith,” asked Herbert, “what makes you think that the brutishness of this man has come on within a little while?”

“Because the paper we found had been recently written, and no one but this shipwrecked man could have written it.”

“Unless,” suggested Spilett, “it had been written by a companion of this man who has since died.”

“That is impossible, Spilett.”

“Why so?”

“Because, then, the paper would have mentioned two persons instead of one.”

Herbert briefly related the incident of the sea striking the sloop, and insisted that the prisoner must then have had a glimmer of his sailor instinct.

“You are perfectly right, Herbert,” said the engineer, “to attach great importance to this fact. This poor man will not be incurable; despair has made him what he is. But here he will find his kindred, and if he still has any reason, we will save it.”

Then, to Smith’s great pity and Neb’s wonderment, the man was brought up from the cabin of the sloop, and as soon as he was on land, he manifested a desire to escape. But Smith, approaching him, laid his hand authoritatively upon his shoulder and looked at him with infinite tenderness. Thereupon the poor wretch, submitting to a sort of instantaneous power, became quiet, his eyes fell, his head dropped forward, and he made no further resistance.

“Poor shipwrecked sailor,” murmured the reporter.

Smith regarded him attentively. To